Like many of you, I've been glued to the TV looking at video from the Gulf Coast. And like I bet many of you, wondering where the military is. It's coming:

One Navy amphibious assault ship, the Bataan, with six Sea Stallion and Sea Hawk helicopters that could be used for search and rescue missions, was en route from Texas. Four other vessels from Norfolk, Va., were expected to sail within 24 hours and take four days to reach the gulf, Northern Command Kucharek said.

The ships will carry food, fuel, medical and construction supplies, as well as hovercraft that can be used for evacuation and search-andrescue missions...

It still takes time to get ships to sea, and for those ships to travel from Norfolk, San Diego, or deployment abroad. Still, if I were the commander of Northern Command, I'd have every army helicopter with a winch on its way to the coast right now, with every fuel truck rolling behind them. I hope they are. The next few days would be a good time to put the Army's helicopters -- which were recently the third largest airforce in the world behind the US Air Force and Russia's (so the Army is probably #2 by now) -- into the hands of its Captains and Warrant Officers. They don't need a lot of coordination and planning from its Generals and Colonels to pluck people off of roofs or to deliver bottled water.

A monkey is sitting in a tree smoking a joint when a lizard walks past,looks up, and says to the monkey, "Hey! What are you doing?"

The monkey says, "Smoking a joint, come up and have some."

So the lizard climbs up and sits next to the monkey, and they share a fewpuffs. After a while the lizard says his mouth is "dry" and is going toget a drink from the river. Once at the river, the lizard is so stonedthat he leans too far over and falls into the water. A Crocodile seesthis, swims over to the lizard, and helps him to the side; then he asksthe lizard, "What's the matter with you?" The lizard explains to thecrocodile that he was sitting smoking a joint with the monkey in thetree, got too stoned, and then fell into the river while taking a drink.

The crocodile says he has to check this out and walks into the jungle,finds the tree where the monkey is sitting, finishing a joint, and helooks up and says, "Hey!"

The Monkey looks down and says...."DUDE,......how muchwater did you drink?!!"

Yes, it's that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least Evolved among us. This is the purging of the gene pool by natural selection. Here then, are the glorious winners.Darwin Award Winners:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.....

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to themental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of thecar and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man,frustrated, walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle Street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to presscharges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

Seen at low tide

HummingbirdFinally, my first hummingbirds. Saw them on a fire bush in Crystal Beach, FL. My rental's neighbor's yard is all xeriscaped, which is ugly to me but just fine with the little hummers. At first, I thought they were the biggest hornets I'd ever seen.

Flamingo!One of these dudes flew right over my house. I couldn't believe it. And please don't tell me it was a roseated spoonbill because it was a frickin' flamingo, dude! Huge and pink and right there above me. I was like so freaking out, you know?

Black SkimmerThese beauties are getting scarce, but one flew by yesterday at low tide on the hunt for minnows.

Dead sea turtlecool, but smelly

Reddish EgretThese have been hanging out around the pool quite a bit lately. Must be a new group of adolesent birds -- the youngsters like to hunt where the water is clear, and it takes them a day to figure out there are not now and never will be fish in the swimming pool no matter how clear the water.

Sand Piper

Brown PelicanI saw a flock of about 200 of these at Disappearing Island yesterday, just south of Anclote Island on the west coast of FL. Good to see such a large flock.

Wood PeckerThey've developed a sudden interest in the orange tree, which just went into bloom.